Richard Dawkins

Clinton Richard DawkinsFRS FRSL (born 26 March 1941) is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. With his book The Extended Phenotype, published in 1982, he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment. In 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.Dawkins is an atheist, and is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. In his most popular book, The God Delusion, published in 2006, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion